Welcome

Welcome to the POZ Community Forums, a round-the-clock discussion area for people with HIV/AIDS, their friends/family/caregivers, and
others concerned about HIV/AIDS. Click on the links below to browse our various forums; scroll down for a glance at the most recent posts; or join in the
conversation yourself by registering on the left side of this page.

Privacy Warning: Please realize that these forums are open to all, and are fully searchable via Google and other search engines. If you are HIV positive
and disclose this in our forums, then it is almost the same thing as telling the whole world (or at least the World Wide Web). If this concerns you, then do not use a
username or avatar that are self-identifying in any way. We do not allow the deletion of anything you post in these forums, so think before you post.

The information shared in these forums, by moderators and members, is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between an individual and his/her own
physician.

All members of these forums are, by default, not considered to be licensed medical providers. If otherwise, users must clearly define themselves as such.

Forums members must behave at all times with respect and honesty. Posting guidelines, including time-out and banning policies, have been established by the moderators
of these forums. Click here for “Am I Infected?” posting guidelines. Click here for posting guidelines pertaining to all other POZ community forums.

We ask all forums members to provide references for health/medical/scientific information they provide, when it is not a personal experience being discussed. Please
provide hyperlinks with full URLs or full citations of published works not available via the Internet. Additionally, all forums members must post information which are
true and correct to their knowledge.

Serum Gc protein (known as vitamin D3-binding protein) is the precursor for the principal macrophage activating factor (MAF). The MAF precursor activity of serum Gc protein of HIV-infected patients was lost or reduced because Gc protein is deglycosylated by alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (Nagalase) secreted from HIV-infected cells. Therefore, macrophages of HIV-infected patients having deglycosylated Gc protein cannot be activated, leading to immunosuppression. Since Nagalase is the intrinsic component of the envelope protein gp120, serum Nagalase activity is the sum of enzyme activities carried by both HIV virions and envelope proteins. These Nagalase carriers were already complexed with anti-HIV immunoglobulin G (IgG) but retained Nagalase activity that is required for infectivity. Stepwise treatment of purified Gc protein with immobilized beta-galactosidase and sialidase generated the most potent macrophage activating factor (termed GcMAF), which produces no side effects in humans. Macrophages activated by administration of 100 ng GcMAF develop a large amount of Fc-receptors as well as an enormous variation of receptors that recognize IgG-bound and unbound HIV virions. Since latently HIV-infected cells are unstable and constantly release HIV virions, the activated macrophages rapidly intercept the released HIV virions to prevent reinfection resulting in exhaustion of infected cells. After less than 18 weekly administrations of 100 ng GcMAF for nonanemic patients, they exhibited low serum Nagalase activities equivalent to healthy controls, indicating eradication of HIV-infection, which was also confirmed by no infectious center formation by provirus inducing agent-treated patient PBMCs. No recurrence occurred and their healthy CD + cell counts were maintained for 7 years.

this seems to be from 2006 so it is old news or am i missing somethingalso for many years i have seen a poz friend of mine who has been struggling for decades and he constantly goes tanning and is very tan, releasing Vitamin D and perhaps helping naturally produce this factor, i am not trivializing this discoveryi am seriously stating that i feel that this one individuals survival is because of his constant tanning and release of vit D and associated factors along with the natural sunshine tanning, that is the only thing this of course he takes meds

I'm instinctively sceptical, too. Nevertheless, is it possible that NO PEER took the trouble to examine just ONE of the 15 patients Dr. Yamamoto claims having eradicated HIV from and to ESTABLISH THE TRUTH once and for all?What are NIAID's SOS for, if nobody cares to other researchers' work and verifies the results they claim???

I'm instinctively sceptical, too. Nevertheless, is it possible that NO PEER took the trouble to examine just ONE of the 15 patients Dr. Yamamoto claims having eradicated HIV from and to ESTABLISH THE TRUTH once and for all?What are NIAID's SOS for, if nobody cares to other researchers' work and verifies the results they claim???

I'm afraid I do not speak Italian. I speak English, and I am also a writer.

However, over here (I live in America) Gc-Maf has not been covered by the media at all, and I believe that needs to change. Also, many people here are skeptical.

I have sent some major news agencies information about this treatment, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. However, I believe that we need more spreading of the word this side of the waters if it's to become "big news" here.

I understand from running some posts through Google Translate that you wish to broaden your information campaign to the world. However, the language barrier is a problem for you. If you guys would like, you could send me the letters you'd like to send to the English-speaking world (it's fine if they are in Italian, Google Translate will give me the gist of the message contents. I would then translate them or write you a new letter in English which you could then forward on to the English news agencies of your choice. This could all be done via PM.

What do you say?

EDIT: I apologize for my English. If there is someone here who can speak English and Italian, perhaps you could convey the gist of this message to the other members here? What I'm offering is a concise, well-written, and personalized letter in English to send to news agencies.

Sincerely, aardvark."

One of your members came over to an American board a while back to talk about the Ensoli vaccine. Out of curiosity I followed the link yesterday and I was thrilled to find not only active discussion of Gc-Maf, but an active campaign to inform the wider world of it.

The english is pretty good, but not perfect. This is why I offered to write English letters for people. Google can confuse words and make things hard to understand. If a letter is written poorly, or with a translator, many people would throw it away.

That is why I'm offering to write English letters to send to American and English news stations - so we can have a real hope of Gc-Maf becoming a reality."

The J. Med. Virol.study is interesting; all patients reached undetectable VL and normal CD4 counts after 8 weeks, maintaining for 7 years. Yamamoto had similiar results with Cancer patients.

Arizona State University has developed a similar form of Gc-Maf, but can only use it in animal models, because Yamamoto owns the patent, as G. Ghirlanda told me. Link ASU LABBut they founded the company Susavion Biosciences (link),and have some patents for Gc-Maf like this one:LINK WiPO (Laura Eggink,Kenneth J. Hoober)

Serum Gc protein (known as vitamin D-binding protein) is the precursor for the principal macrophage activating factor (MAF). The MAF precursor activity of serum Gc protein of HIVinfected patients was lost or reduced because Gc protein is deglycosylated by serum alpha-N-acetylgalactosami nidase (Nagalase) secreted from HIV-infected cells. Since Nagalase is the intrinsic component of gp120, serum Nagalase was already complexed with anti-HIV immunoglobulin G (IgG) in patient blood stream. The IgG-bound virions were infectious and retained Nagalase activity, leading to immunosuppression. Stepwise treatment of purified serum Gc protein or its cloned Gc protein with immobilized beta-galactosidase and sialidase generated the most potent MAF (termed GcMAF or GcMAFc, respectively) ever discovered, which produces no side effect in humans. Macrophages activated by intramuscular administration of GcMAF or GcMAFc (100 ng/patient) developed a large amount of Fc-receptors as well as enormous variation of receptors that phagocytize IgG bound and unbound HIV virions. Cells harboring HIV provirus were unstable and spontaneously released the virions at a high rate. After less than 18 weekly intramuscular administrations of 100 ng GcMAF or GcMAFc to twenty-four nonanemic patients, they exhibited healthy control level of Nagalase activity, indicating eradication of HIV-infection. Since GcMAFc has a potentmitogenic activity on myeloid progenitor cells (MPC), intravenous administration of GcMAFc allowed rapid interaction of GcMAFc with MPC in bone marrow and the systemic cell counts of the activated macrophages increased to 220-fold in 2 days. Weekly intravenous administration of 100 ng GcMAFc to HIV-infected patients eradicated HIV-infection in 8-13 weeks.

You are clearly supposed to believe that it is major; but I suspect that it is only big news in the Federation Of Canteens In Schools

I totally understand your cynicism about it but the thing is U. of Pennsylvania and FOCIS are reputable organizations. They wouldn't risk their reputations by making false claims etc.....that's precisely why it sounds so compelling, because the source of the claims is legitimate.

If you google his name and cancer and the GcMAFc cancer "study" from a while back you will find angry letters from cancer patients about the lack of scientific method used in his research. This "study" seems similar.

Complete eradication is impossible to say with 100% accuracy due to the fact HIV can hide in many places that can't be tested for the virus (ie: the brain). There is also a question about the patient who had the bone marrow transplant ------ calling it a functional cure ( not that there's anything wrong with that!). Anything that can help safely toward that end is worth pursuing .

Complete eradication is impossible to say with 100% accuracy due to the fact HIV can hide in many places that can't be tested for the virus (ie: the brain). There is also a question about the patient who had the bone marrow transplant ------ calling it a functional cure ( not that there's anything wrong with that!). Anything that can help safely toward that end is worth pursuing .

v

True, but Yamamoto gets serious credibility problems when his idea of eradication of HIV is a viral load <400 copies/ml, so not even the <50 copies/ml goal of current antiretroviral treatments.

By his measure, I was cured of HIV within two weeks of starting treatment with Sustiva & Truvada

I haven't followed Yamamoto's research that closely, so my comment was really meant to be more of a general statement. If he truly said that eradication is a viral load of <400, then I certainly agree his credibility is suspect. Even the therapy that I am following closely and am very excited about (anti-ps) will really never be able to be proven a cure for the same reasons that I stated above.However,to build an immune response that can functionaly cure HIV without needing a "cocktail" is everybodie's dream.

Maybe it's because my eyes tend to glaze over when I read these articles, but nowhere did I see mention of viral load testing - and I did look for it. All I read was - "After less than 18 weekly intramuscular administrations of 100 ng GcMAF or GcMAFc to twenty-four nonanemic patients, they exhibited healthy control level of Nagalase activity, indicating eradication of HIV-infection." Since when was Nagalase activity levels an indication of the eradication of hiv infection? Am I missing something?

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

... Since when was Nagalase activity levels an indication of the eradication of hiv infection? Am I missing something?

Ann(who wants to know)

I think you have precisely fingered the weak point in both the cancer and the HIV papers; he has concluded that Nagalase activity is a marker for cancer activity and HIV and infers that reduction in Nagalase activity to normal levels indicates a cure.

He does not verify that inference using modern tests for HIV.

Nor does he cite to anyone else who has verified that this secondary marker (Nagalase) is or remains a reliable indicator in the presence of therapy that directly targets Nagalase.

This is in reply to your inquiry dated January 8, 2009, to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), concerning an article reported in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Virology.

While the report of this immunotherapeutic intervention is very interesting and very important, it is early to know whether GcMAF can actually eradicate HIV. Further research, using modern plasma viral load assays, would be important in determining the significance of this treatment.

That said, harnessing the power of the immune system could be a very potent way to treat HIV infection. A number of strategies are being investigated to suppress the virus and enhance resistance to HIV. NIAID will continue to support the fundamental research that will be the foundation for new therapeutic approaches to HIV/AIDS.

mail :The Hiv Eradication article pubblished by prof. Yamamoto on January 2009 on the scientific Journal Medical Virology, has had little feedback...better say, no feedback at all even by the national and international press too.This fact is very strange!Only some associations have posted the news on their home-pages but the news has dropped away without any feedback.Some Hiv+ people have activated a series of initiatives to contact the directors of the JMV, responsable of the publication.The publication of Prof. Yamamoto is rich of significant data and descriptive tables about the research and are of a big impact.The directors of the magazine, Prof. Zuckerman and Prof. Mahny have answered to the questions, guaranteeing the validaty of the data, eventhough in an elusory way, but at the same time threatening to sue us without any reason. The questions were legitimate and politely done!Is it possible that nobody wants to comment this article of such a big impact!?Anyway it has been prepared the following e-mail and sent to the most prestigious agencies.

Dear director of Aids Operative Centre.more than 4 months ago has been possible to notice the publishing, on the scientific Jornal Medical Virology, an article on HIV eradication by Prof. Yamamoto, explaining the way he obtained the Hiv eradication in only 18 weeks by injecting, weekly, 100ng GcMAF, an activating factor of macrophages obtained by the Gc Protein. This is shown by a fully successfull experiment, done in 2002 on 15 assintomatic Hiv+ patients and non anemic one; these patients have been healthy without having a viral feedback (HIV-RNA, HIV-DNA) and immune alterations such as CD4, CD8 and their percentage absolutely normal) in more than seven years (J. Med. Virol. 81:16-26, 2009).

We have been trying to inquire with the help of the associations, specialists and even embassys without having a feedback, particularly:1 - [authorised ethic committees]2 - [centres and patients]3 - [contacts with the authors]4 - [contacts with the directors of JMV]....

Now, since the issue continues to cause serious disturbance among all the Hiv+, and we are not in the best possible conditions, we ask to You and to Your Institution, authority of national importance, to clear up the points above, in order to ascertain whether we are faced with a falsely clamorous scientific discovery or a true one.Certainly we would like to see confirmed the latter one. We are convinced that you would put under exam the GcMAF, a low-cost molecule and of an easy preparation, for further clinical trial in case of the results of Prof Yamamoto would be authentic. This would represent the salvation of millions of Hiv+ people all over the world.Dispite the disappointment in case the trial is not true, we are greatful to You for having provided to us an answer.Hopefully in an acceptance of our request, we thank and cordially greet.

Serum Gc protein (known as vitamin D3-binding protein) is the precursor for the principal macrophage activating factor (MAF). The MAF precursor activity of serum Gc protein of HIV-infected patients was lost or reduced because Gc protein is deglycosylated by alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (Nagalase) secreted from HIV-infected cells. Therefore, macrophages of HIV-infected patients having deglycosylated Gc protein cannot be activated, leading to immunosuppression. Since Nagalase is the intrinsic component of the envelope protein gp120, serum Nagalase activity is the sum of enzyme activities carried by both HIV virions and envelope proteins. These Nagalase carriers were already complexed with anti-HIV immunoglobulin G (IgG) but retained Nagalase activity that is required for infectivity. Stepwise treatment of purified Gc protein with immobilized beta-galactosidase and sialidase generated the most potent macrophage activating factor (termed GcMAF), which produces no side effects in humans. Macrophages activated by administration of 100 ng GcMAF develop a large amount of Fc-receptors as well as an enormous variation of receptors that recognize IgG-bound and unbound HIV virions. Since latently HIV-infected cells are unstable and constantly release HIV virions, the activated macrophages rapidly intercept the released HIV virions to prevent reinfection resulting in exhaustion of infected cells. After less than 18 weekly administrations of 100 ng GcMAF for nonanemic patients, they exhibited low serum Nagalase activities equivalent to healthy controls, indicating eradication of HIV-infection, which was also confirmed by no infectious center formation by provirus inducing agent-treated patient PBMCs. No recurrence occurred and their healthy CD + cell counts were maintained for 7 years.

Look on the bright side --------- the injections could be subcutaneous!!!! (lol).

I did weekly sub-Q injections for a year when I was on Interferon for hep C. They were a horror! I never could bring myself to stick myself - my daughter usually did it for me. I was fine once the needle was in and I could take over from there, but I could never stick it in me. I'd break out in a cold sweat and start shaking! I'm such a wimp when it comes to needles. Intramuscular injections would be even worse, IMO.

I think you have precisely fingered the weak point in both the cancer and the HIV papers; he has concluded that Nagalase activity is a marker for cancer activity and HIV and infers that reduction in Nagalase activity to normal levels indicates a cure.

He does not verify that inference using modern tests for HIV.

Nor does he cite to anyone else who has verified that this secondary marker (Nagalase) is or remains a reliable indicator in the presence of therapy that directly targets Nagalase.

Thanks for that, I'm glad it's not just me who thought it was strange.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

not sure if its just me but on page 19 of the journal article he describes the method he used to measure viral load

HIV-1 RNA in serum was measured by a RT-PCR kit(Amplicator HIV-1 Monitor, Roche Diagnostic Systems,Basel, Switzerland) as described by Hashida et al.[2000]. The cutoff value of this assay is 400 copies/ml.

whilst 400 copies is not a cure maybe its enough to keep the balance and hence manageable.

Even if this is not a lead its seems as if we constantly write articles about refuting the research. it seems to be discussion paper after discussion paper. why not just check the results, check the patients and then either say yay or nay....

What i am extremely surprised about is the lack of a global reseach catalogue. A central repository of all research that is going on, been done, being thought of. i just read a couple of articles and they are talking about the same thing.... Isn't this just duplication of effort?

Anyway just my thoughts and feel free to correct me if I read the journal incorrectly always up for learning how to read research papers.

Up to the recent FOCIS meeting, we presented clinical studies supported by Japanese IRB. We do not plan to present our studies in future HIV Meetings, until US IND approval and clinical studies.

Your statement “amazing results” is over exaggeration. All HIV virions in patient blood stream are bound with anti-HIV IgG (non-neutralizing). Activated macrophages have a large number of Fc receptors that rapidly phagocytize IgG bound virions. In fact, one Japanese group (Nakagawa et al. 2003) already published that oral administration of a feeble macrophage activating agent NK-4 increased CD4 counts and decreased Nagalase activity with Thai HIV-infected patients (Anticancer Res 23: 4389-94).

If you are interested in GcMAF therapy, we are glad to help you as soon as IND approval. In your next communication with us, please identify who you are (e.g., your institution, position and title). Otherwise, our Record Department easily dismisses your request.

I have read the article available on line http://www.sciencedirect. com/science?_ob=ArticleUR april 2009 ( you have presented that research at FOCIS 2009 T101 Treatment of HIV-Infected Patients with Gc Protein-Derived Macrophage Activating Factor GcMAF and Its Coned Derivative GcMAFc Eradicates HIV-Infection ).

I would like to know if you are planning to present that amazing result at IAS or other well known HIV MEETING.

Would you be so kind to provide me some more information about future clinical trial ?

You have simply posted a list of members of the editorial board of a journal. They aren't actually endorsing a single word of Dr. Nobuto Yamamoto's 'research'.

You are wrong, the scientific members must have absolutely approved the published research, don't forget that is a peer-review scientific magazine. How come you claim the scientific members do not approve a single word of Dr. Nobuto ? Have you got more informations ?

You are wrong, the scientific members must have absolutely approved the published research, don't forget that is a peer-review scientific magazine. How come you claim the scientific members do not approve a single word of Dr. Nobuto ? Have you got more informations ?

Actually, I am not wrong. They are simply the editorial board and are in NO WAY endorsing his claims to have eradicated HIV in his test subjects. Where are you getting your information from? I assume you don't understand the process of peer-review if you think they are agreeing with him.

Also, I didn't actually say anything at all about not approving what Yamamoto says. I said that they hadn't endorsed it. Subtle, but very crucial, difference. Clearly it has been approved for publication; but in a month of Sundays that can't be stretched to imply that they in any way agree with his conclusions.

Quote

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding.

You are wrong, the scientific members must have absolutely approved the published research, don't forget that is a peer-review scientific magazine. How come you claim the scientific members do not approve a single word of Dr. Nobuto ? Have you got more informations ?

Publication of a paper in a peer reviewed scientific journal does not mean that each member of the editorial board agrees with all statements made in the paper. In fact few, if any, of the members of the editorial board may have read the paper before publication. The editorial board usually serves as a pool that recruits authors and papers, recruits peer reviewers and oversees the procedures for review at a rather general level. They don't all get involved in the review of each individual paper.

In these five people, viral loads fell to low or so-called undetectable levels over the course of the first six weeks of the study. Bear in mind that the viral load assay used in the study had a lower-limit of quantification of 400 copies/mL. More sensitive assays with a lower-limit of quantification ranging between 75 and 40 copies/mL are routinely used in high-income countries such as Japan. That the MAF research team used an older and less-sensitive assay is unusual and suggests that its pilot study was done many years ago when high-sensitivity viral load assays were not yet available. As a result of using the 400-copy assay, it is possible that low-level viral replication that the assay could not detect was taking place in study participants.

It's also possible the viral loads could have been as low as undetectable or <50 but there's no way to tell if 400 was the lower limit of that particular assay.

This work obviously needs to be repeated, which is the hallmark of any experiment worth it's salt: can it be reproduced? If that is ever done, more advanced and sensitive viral load assays can be used and the validity of the therapy can be better assessed.

It's confusing to know where things stand with this, at the very least it deserves a closer look and legitimate peer review.

PS: I assume the mention of "University of Pennsylvania" in one of Bobitalia's posts was a typo because if they are involved with this it does give the whole thing more credibility.

I didn't see any mention of University of Pennsylvania in the link you provided. It's possible I missed it but I looked carefully. The Socrates Institute for Therapeutic Immunology, which is mentioned and is in Philadelphia I believe is Yamamoto's company.

I do think that an established Ivy League institution such as U Penn would not want their name anywhere near any research that would tarnish their stellar reputation. I'm still not convinced they are involved though, the only indication seems to be one of Bobitalia's posts on this thread.